cans, he said, must be taught that we
will no longer sit quietly under their insults; and that, being
roused, our measures, though free from cruelty and revenge, would be as
efficacious as they were necessary. This was the last act, he stated,
that he had to propose in order to perfect his plan, and that the rest
would depend on the vigilance of his majesty's servants employed in
America. In conclusion, he mentioned that four regiments, usually
stationed in different parts of North America, had all been ordered
to Boston; and that General Gage was appointed governor and
commander-in-chief.

This measure was opposed with greater vehemence and better arguments
than those which had preceded it. Colonel Barre, who had given a
partial support to the Boston Port Bill, denounced it as unprecedented,
unwarranted, and as fraught with misery and oppression to America, and
with danger to this country. It stigmatised a whole people, he remarked,
as persecutors of innocence, and as men incapable of doing justice,
whereas the very reverse was the fact. As a proof of the impartiality
of Bostonian courts and juries, he instanced the acquittal of Captain
Preston and the soldiers who had killed some persons in a riot; and
he denied that the instances of trials for smuggling and for treason,
adduced by Lord North, were at all applicable to the present case. He
asked, what reliance the Americans could have on the impartiality of
juries in other provinces, or in England, and dwelt with great force
on the danger of screening the soldiery, whose passions were already
inflamed against the people of Massachusets Bay. "A soldier," he
observed, "feels himself so much above the rest of mankind, that the
strict hand of the civil power is necessary to check and restrain
the haughtiness of disposition which such superiority inspires. What
constant care is taken in this country to remind the military that they
are under the restraint of civil power! In America their superiority is
felt still more. Remove the check of the law, as this bill proposes, and
what insolence, what outrage, may you not expect! Every passion that
is pernicious to society will be let loose on a people unaccustomed
to licentiousness and intemperance. The colonists, who have been long
complaining of oppression, will see in the soldiery those who are to
enforce it on them; while the military, strongly prepossessed against
the people as rebellious, unawed by the civil power, and act